It’s amazing that both the Japan nuclear reactor problem and Katrina inundating New Orleans stem from the exact same design flaw.
Emergency Generators!
In Katrina’s case the huge generators needed to power the massive pumps to pump out the below sea- level city were placed near sea level, so the hurricane driven seawater overran the generators, disabling the massive pumps. The same thing happened to a New Orleans hospital as the ground level emergency generator was flooded out.
In the Japanese nuclear case, all reactors in the plant automatically shut down perfectly during the earthquake, yet the minute’s later tsunami overran the emergency generators, killing emergency electrical power needed to run coolant water into the already shut down reactors.
It’s the same simple engineering problem – emergency generators- and their fuel tanks- sited too low to the anticipated sea level.
We don’t have an unsafe nuclear technology; we have an emergency generator location problem.
Great point. I still think GE makes junk, is an incredibly liberal company that is rotten to the core (including reactor core).
In fact the reactor design withstood greater than designed forces in the earthquake. It was the tsunami that caused the problems. If anyone is at fault it is the Japanese for not considering the worst case scenario where the tsunami was concerned. Not GE. The Japanese told GE what to design for.
Go even farther back, to the big NYC/Northeast blackout of decades ago.
In at least one Manhattan hospital, all “essential” hospital circuitry was connected to the emergency generators.
Sump pumps in the subbasements (located below the river level) were not considered “essential”, so the generators located in—you guessed it—the subbasements, kicked in perfectly, then quickly flooded out.
Doctors had to finish in-progress surgeries using flashlights.
A very shrewd point.